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Fire lookout · Benewah County, Idaho

Tyson Peak

Benewah County tower on Tyson Peak: 1934 camp, L-4 cab tower by 1939. Sources give 1957 for destruction, but a 1956 Geodetic Survey note says it was already removed. No source describes the site now.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Listed as gone by the Forest Fire Lookout Association. Firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts say destroyed in 1957; a Geodetic Survey note quoted by Forest Lookouts says it was removed before its 1956 survey.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Idaho Fire Lookouts calls it a hike-in. Forest Lookouts reproduces Geodetic Survey directions: a road that needs four-wheel drive past washouts, then a trail of about one mile to the top.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerTower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1939
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Benewah County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.10092, −116.52052
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-tyson-peak

View from the cab

What the lookout saw from its cab: every ridge out to about 93 miles, the named peaks in sight, and other fire lookouts within view, worked out from terrain data in your browser.

This lookout is gone. The view is reconstructed from its recorded site and a typical height for a lookout like it.

Downloads about 4.1 MB of terrain data the first time.

Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.

History

Then and now

  1. 1934 EventCamp on the peakSources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1939 BuiltTower with L-4 cabSources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1939 and 1956
  4. 1956 EventGeodetic Survey note: the tower had been removed before its 1956 survey; the year of removal is not givenSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1957 DestroyedDestroyed, per firelookout.com and Idaho Fire LookoutsSources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com
  6. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.

Old maps of this spot

USGS topographic maps from the years a lookout stood may show it, often as a small symbol labelled “Lookout”. See the old topo maps around it on the Firefinder map, or find every scanned sheet of this spot on USGS TopoView (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).

Story

Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Tyson Peak Lookout stood on Tyson Peak in Benewah County, in the St. Joe National Forest, at 4,745 feet.1,2

The site had a camp in 1934, and a tower with an L-4 cab is listed for 1939.1,3,4

Sources disagree on when the tower came down. Firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts date its destruction to 1957.3,1 Forest Lookouts quotes a National Geodetic Survey note that the tower had already been removed before the Survey's 1956 visit.4 The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the tower as gone.2

Forest Lookouts also reproduces the Survey's directions to its station mark. They say the road reaches a series of bad washouts, that only four-wheel-drive vehicles can go beyond them, and that a trail of about one mile leads to the top.4 Idaho Fire Lookouts calls the site a hike-in.1

The Survey described a station tablet cemented in bedrock about seven inches lower than the ground, directly under the tower's center.4 No source we read describes what remains at the site today, or whether it is open to the public.1,2,3,4

  1. Tyson Peak, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/tyson-peak/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Tyson Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/tysonpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Tyson Peak - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/tyson-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Sources

  1. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: name, location, county, type, status, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  2. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: links firelookout.com · No licence stated on the site; facts only (coordinates, elevation, built/destroyed years, design, agency). Photos mirrored with the site's stated credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  3. Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) Gave us: dates, links idahofirelookouts.com · No licence stated; facts only (coordinates, status/built/destroyed year parsed from each entry's short excerpt). Thumbnail photos mirrored with credit per the project's photo policy. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  4. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: design, agency, ownership, links Ron Kemnow's Forest Lookouts sites (westlookouts, californialookouts, idaholookouts, montanalookouts, oregonlookouts and washingtonlookouts .weebly.com) · No licence stated; facts only (county, land manager, status word, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, township-range-section, height and design hints, links). The site's own newspaper quotes, citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  5. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, visiting details, dates, links, fact-check Firefinder research (sources cited in the story footnotes) · Our own research notes; each fact cites its source in the lookout's story

More about this lookout elsewhere

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.